


I 



'■: vi'i .., mm 



jpiBRARY OF CONGRESS. H 



:; S UNITED STATES OF AMER.CA.-M 



THE FIRE-FIEND, 



AND 



<&tl)tx $3* ems. 



BY 



CHARLES D. GARDETTE 



NEW YORK: 
BUNCE AND HUNTINGTON, PUBLISHERS. 



M.DCCC.LXVI. 



G1 f 



Entered according to Aft of Congress, in the year 1865, 

By BUNCE AND HUNTINGTON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
Distrift of New York.' 



34293 



ALVOUD, PRINTER. 




PRE-NOTE 



A FEW — and but a few — words of explanation seem 
appropriate here, with reference to the poem which 
gives title to this volume. 

The " Fire-Fiend" was written some six years ago, 
in consequence of a literary discussion wherein it was 
asserted, that the marked originality of style, both as to 
conception and expression, in the poems of the late Edgar 
Allen Poe, rendered a successful imitation difficult even 
to impossibility. The author was challenged to produce 
a poem, in the manner of " The Raven" which should be 
accepted by the general critic as a genuine composition of 
Mr. Poe's, and the " Fire-Fiend" was the result. 

This poem was printed as " from an unpublished MS. 
of the late Edgar A. Poe," and the hoax proved suffi- 
ciently successful to deceive a number of critics in this 
country, and also in England where it was afterward re- 
published (by Mr. Macready, the tragedian), in the London 
6W, as an undoubted production of its soi-disa?it author. 



4 PRE-NOTE. 

The comments upon it, by the various critics, profes- 
sional and other, who accepted it as Mr. Poe's, were too 
flattering to be quoted here, the more especially, since, had 
the poem appeared simply as the composition of its real 
author, these gentlemen would probably have been slow 
to discover in it the same merits. 

The true history of the poem and its actual authorship 
being thus succinctly given, there seems nothing further 
to be said, than to remain, very respectfully, the Reader's 
humble servant, 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS 



The Fire-Fiend: a Nightmare 
Golgotha : a Phantasm 



page 

7 

13 



WAR 


ECHOES. 




Peace, the Victim . 




. 19 


Lint ... . 




21 


"An Unclaimed Body" 


■ • . • 


. 24 


The Two Soldiers 




27 


The Cripple at the Gate 


. 


. 29 


The Noonday Street 


. 


. • 33 


The Broken Sword 




• 35 


The Three Watchers 


. . . . 


38 


"Sisters of Mercy" 




. 40 


At the Outpost 


, • 


42 


Only One 


. . 


• 44 


Proto-Martyr Noster . . 


• . • • 


• 46 



VAGARIES. 



How Winter cometh 
.How Spring cometh 



49 
5' 



CONTENTS. 



Storm and Sun 

Catalpa 

The Secret of the Aspen 

The Glove-Kiss 

Latakea 

Dogwood Leaves 

Ephemera 

Ephemera . 

From Alpha to Omega . 

The Feast-Night of the Two 

The Messenger-Years 

The Kite . 

The Two Shadows 

The Snow : a Fantasy 

The Lamp 

In the Pavilion 

Rest .... 

Au Revoir 

The Treasure-Ships : a Fragment 

Ma Mie : a Gasconade 

Sua Culpa 

Too Late ! 

Claire : a Spirit-Memory 

Umbra : a half-sung Song 

Never Again .... 

The Autumn Leaves . 

Gone : a New-Year's Monody 



Queens 



THE FIRE-FIEND 



A NIGHTMARE. 



I. 

IN the deepest dearth of Midnight, while the sad and 
solemn swell 
Still was floating, faintly echoed from the Forest Chapel 

Bell- 
Faintly, falteringly floating o'er the sable waves of air 
That were through the Midnight rolling, chafed and bil- 
lowy with the tolling— 
In my chamber I lay dreaming by the fire-light's fitful 

gleaming, 
And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed on a heart 
foredoomed to Care ! 

IX. 

As the last long lingering echo of the Midnight's mystic 

chime — 
Lifting through the sable billows to the Thither Shore 

of Time — 



8 THE FIRE-FIEND. 

Leaving on the starless silence not a token nor a trace — 
In a quivering sigh departed ; from my couch in fear I 

started : 
Started to my feet in terror, for my Dream's phantasmal 

Error 
Painted in the fitful fire a frightful, fiendish, flaming face ! 



in. 

On the red hearth's reddest centre, from a blazing knot 

of oak, 
Seemed to gibe and grin this Phantom when in terror I 

awoke, 
And my slumberous eyelids straining as I staggered to 

the floor, 
Still in that dread Vision seeming, turned my gaze toward 

the gleaming 
I Hearth, and — there! — oh, God! I saw It! and from out 



Its flaming jaw It 
Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling, gurgling 
stream of gore ! 



IV. 

Speechless ; struck with stony silence ; frozen to the floor 



I stood, 



THE FIRE-FIEND. 



9 



Till methought my brain was hissing with that hissing, 
bubbling blood :■ — 

Till I felt my life-stream oozing, oozing from those lam- 
bent lips : — 

Till the Demon seemed to name me : — then a wondrous 
calm o'ercame me, 

And my brow grew cold and dewy, with a death-damp 
stiff and gluey, 

And I fell back on my pillow in apparent soul-eclipse ! 



Then, as in Death's seeming shadow, in the icy Pall of 

Fear 

I lay stricken^ came a hoarse and hideous murmur to 
my ear : — 

Came a murmur like the murmur of assassins in their 

sleep : — 
Muttering, " Higher ! higher ! higher ! I am Demon of 

the Fire ! 
I am Arch-Fiend of the Fire ! and each blazing roof's 

o 

my pyre, 

And my sweetest incense is the blood and tears my 

J J 

victims weep !" 



lO THE FIRE-FIEND. 

VI. 

u How I revel on the Prairie ! How I roar among the 

Pines ! 
How I laugh when from the village o'er the snow the 

red flame shines, 
And I hear the shrieks of terror, with a Life in every 

breath ! 
How I scream with lambent laughter as I hurl each 

crackling rafter 
Down the fell abyss of Fire, until higher ! higher ! higher ! 
Leap the High-Priests of my Altar in their merry Dance 

of Death !" 

VII. 

u I am Monarch of the Fire ! I am Vassal-King of 

Death ! 
World-encircling, with the shadow of its Doom upon my 

breath ! 
With the symbol of Hereafter flaming from my fatal 

face ! 
I command the Eternal Fire ! Higher ! higher ! higher ! 

higher ! 
Leap my ministering Demons, like Phantasmagoric lemans 
Hugging Universal Nature in their hideous embrace !" 



THE FIRE-FIEND. 11 

VIII. 

Then a sombre silence shut me in a solemn, shrouded 

sleep, 
And I slumbered, like an infant in the " Cradle of the 

Deep," 
Till the Belfry in the Forest quivered with the matin 

stroke, 
And the martins, from the edges of its lichen-lidded ledges, 
Shimmered through the russet arches where the Light in 

torn files marches, 
Like a routed army struggling through the serried ranks 

of oak. 

IX. 

Through my ivy-fretted casement filtered in a tremulous 
note 

From the tall and stately linden where a Robin swelled 
his throat : — 

Querulous, quaker-breasted Robin, calling quaintly for his 
mate ! 

Then I started up, unbidden, from my slumber Night- 
mare ridden, 

With the memory of that Dire Demon in my central Fire 

On my eye's interior mirror like the shadow of a Fate ! 



12 THE FIRE-FIEND. 

X. 

Ah ! the fiendish Fire had smouldered to a white and 
formless heap, 

And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my 
sleep ; 

But around its very centre, where the Demon Face had 
shone, 

Forked Shadows seemed to linger, pointing as with spec- 
tral finger 

To a Bible, massive, golden, on a table carved and 
olden — 

And I bowed, and said, " All Power is of God, of God 
alone !" 



GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. 



m 



GOLGOTHA: 

A PHANTASM. 

WHILE the embers flare and flicker, gathering 
shadows thick and thicker — 
While the slender, shaded lamplight sheds a glimmer gray 

and dull — 
On my mantel, smoke-incrusted, o'er two war-knives 

hacked and rusted, 
In my fascinated vision grins a dark and dented Skull ! 

Through the Midnight Forest leaping — Death's red har- 
vest fresh from reaping — 

Once this Skull was steeped and drunken in a revelry 
of gore : 

In his crimson orgie shrieking, mad with lust, and murder- 
reeking — 

Thus the Blood-Avenger found him — smote him ! — and 
he raved no more ! 

In that Forest, leaf-enfolded, many a nameless year he 
mouldered, 



H 



GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. 



Withered, shrivelled, fell to utter dry and desolate decay; 
Till of all his savage glory naught there was to tell the 

story 
Save this dark uncouth and dented Skull I found, and 

bore away ! 

With the coward thought to mock it, in each eyeball's 

blackened socket 
Once I set a globe of silver, as a dread and dismal jest. 
Oh ! full often has the glitter of those pale globes caused 

a bitter 
Burst of sharp and sudden terror to a timid twilight 

guest ! 

But, to-night, their flashes daunt me, and their changing 

glances haunt me, 
And their cold glare shivers through me like a scymitar 

of ice ! 
Well I know their threat is seeming — that no life is in 

their gleaming, 
Yet my soul is strangely troubled by my own accurst 

device ! 
Ay ! my soul is strangely troubled ! And my heart-throbs 

fiercely doubled ! 



GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. 



15 



And I cannot wrench my gaze from off those silver 

demon-balls ! 
To my brain their blaze seems burning — ah ! by Heaven ! 

I saw them turning ! 
Yes ! see — see them ! there ! they roll ! O God ! a red 

light from them falls ! 

%. >K if. $i 

How its white teeth glint and glisten ! Listen ! Am I 
mad ? O ! listen ! 

No ! It speaks ! I hear a whisper rattle through its hol- 
low jaws ! — 

" With this jest my front adorning, Pale-Face, you are 
blindly scorning, — 

Sadly, sorrowfully scorning all your Being's Primal Laws ! 

" Count the dim descent of Ages ! Turn Life's crisp <ind 

crumbling pages ! 
Is a single Leaf forgotten in this Golgotha of Doom ? 
Fool ! You bear a fragile, carnal shroud around your 

ghastly charnel, 
But to add another atom to the Inevitable Loom ! 

" I have stripped my shroud before you : You, perchance, 
now wear it o'er you ! 



l6 GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. 

Every shred of Life is woven from the Dead Past, o'er 

and o'er ! 
Through the Years the Earth is heaving with this weird 

and wondrous weaving, 
And your slender thread but waiteth till the Loom hath 

need of more !" 

It hath ceased ! There is no glimmer on the hearth ! 
The lamp grows dimmer, 

Dimmer, dimmer — now it flickers, flashes, wildly flares — 
is fled! 

Through the Darkness round me heaving, now I hear a 
sound of weaving, 

As a Mighty Loom were working, viewless, with a view- 
less thread ! 



WAR ECHOES 



PEACE, THE VICTIM. 19 



PEACE, THE VICTIM. 

NOON ! and above the further hills 
There floats a sea of purple mist, 
Whose tremulous depth of amethyst 
With amber sun-tide ebbs and fills. 

Within yon slope of wooded deeps, 
Where in a shadowed glory nod 
The blossoms of the golden rod, 

A slumber-laden South wind creeps. 

Through tangled grasses, scarcely stirred, 
The loitering brook, with silent flow 
Slips toward the languid lake below, 

Where knee-deep stand the listless herd. 

The stirless draperies of the air 
Wrap me as in the sensuous folds 
Of an Arcadian dream, that holds 

Its spell of Peace forever there. 



20 WAR ECHOES. 

Peace, dove-eyed Goddess ! Lo ! I kneel, 
Here at thy stainless shrine, and swear- 
Hark ! 'tis the trumpet's angry blare ! 

And yonder gleams the glint of steel ! 

Fast through the purple mist they break : 
Their chargers thunder down the steep ; 
And from the glamour of their sleep 

The valley's thousand echoes wake. 

The startled air in surges sweeps 
Athwart the lake : the herd is fled : 
The golden rod lies crushed and dead 

Within 'the ravaged woodland deeps. 

And Peace ? Upon her sacred plain, 
Her altar with fraternal gore 
Smokes redly : by her Southern shore 

Stalks Treason with the brand of Cain. 



LINT. 21 



LINT 



FIBRE by fibre, shred by shred, 
It falls from her delicate hand 
In feathery films, as soft and slow 
As fall the flakes of a vanishing snow 
In the lap of a summer land. 

There are jewels of price in her roseate ears, 

And gold round her white wrist coils : 
There are costly trifles on every hand, 
And gems of art from many a land, 
In the chamber where she toils. 

A rare bird sings in a gilded cage 

At the open casement near : 
A sun-ray glints through a swaying bough, 
And lights with a diamond radiance now 

The dew of a falling tear ! 

A sob floats out to the summer air 
With the song-bird's latest trill : 



22 WAR ECHOES. 

The gossamer folds of the drapery 
Are waved by the swell of a long, low sigh, 
And the delicate hands are still. 

" Ah ! beauty of earth is naught, is naught ! 

And a gilded youth is vain ! 
I have seen a sister's scarred face shine 
With a youth and beauty all divine 

By the soldier's couch of pain ! 

" I have read of another, whose passing shade 
On their pillows, the mangled kissed, 

In the far Crimea !" — There are no more tears ; 

But she plucks the gems from her delicate ears, 
And the gold from her slender wrist. 

The bird still sings in his gilded cage ; 

But the Angel in her heart 
Hath stung her soul with a noble pain, 
And beauty is naught, and youth is vain, 

While the Patriot's wounds still smart! 
* * * * 

Fibre by fibre, shred by shred, 
Still fall from her delicate hand 



LINT. 23 

The feathery films, as soft and slow 
As fall the flakes of a vanishing snow- 
In the lap of a summer land. 



There are crimson stains on breasts and brows, 

And fillets in ghastly coils : 
The walls are lofty, and white, and bare, 
And moaning echoes roll ever there 

Through the chamber where she toils. 

No glitter of gold on her slender wrist, 

Nor gem in her roseate ears ; 
But a youth and a beauty all divine 
In the face of the Christian maiden shine, 

And her gems are the soldier's tears ! 



24 WAR ECHOES. 



"AN UNCLAIMED BODY." 

UNKNOWN, unclaimed, forgotten ; 
In a rude, unlettered bier ; 
With the death-wound on his fair young brow, 
In a nameless grave he sleepeth now, 
Unhallowed by a tear ! 

* * * * 

Darkly the cloud of battle 

Hangs o'er the Field of Pines : 
With desperate might the rebels bear 
Their famine-driven squadrons there, 

Upon our slender lines. 

The shadowy belts of forest 

With ghastly flames are red : 
By copse and bramble, plain and wood, 
Lie, prone or writhing in their blood, 

The dying and the dead. 

Who is yon gallant stripling 

Far in our battle's van, 
Who combats as if Freedom's charm 



"AN UNCLAIMED BODY." 2$ 

Had nerved his heart and steeled his arm 
Beyond the might of man ? 

Within the deepest woodland, 

When faint the conflict, grew — 

His dress in deadly grapple shred, 

Blackened his face, and bare his head — 

He fell ! — and no one knew ! 

* * * * 

Sweet are the song-birds' carols : 

The flowers of June are fair : 
The stream laughs gaily in the sun ; 
But by its margin walketh one 

Who sees no laughter there. 

Her slender form is drooping : 

Her dark-blue eye is dim : 
The sun-rays nestle in her hair ; 
The birds still sing; the flowers are fair — 

She only thinks of him ! 

" Oh ! that this mad rebellion 

By prayers and tears could cease ; 
And he — my golden thread of life — 
Were here, unbroken, from the strife, 

To give my poor heart peace ! 



26 WAR ECHOES. 

u I love thee, oh, my country ! 

I love thee from my soul ! 
My life I would not count a shade, 
A feather, on thine altar laid, 

If it could make thee whole ! 

" But his ! ah ! spare my other, 

My nobler, better part ! 
Thou still hast myriad hero souls 
To shine on Glory's martyr-rolls ; 

But be is all my heart !" 

The summer flowers still open, 

And the bee their honey sips ; 
But alas ! for the weeping maiden there, 
With the sunshine rippling o'er her hair, 

And the prayer on her trembling lips ! 

Unclaimed, unknown, forgotten ; 

In a rude, unlettered bier ; 
With the death-wound on his fair young brow, 
In a nameless grave be sleepeth now, 

Unhallowed by a tear ! 



THE TIVO SOLDIERS. Vj 



THE TWO SOLDIERS. 

i. 

TWO maids walked by the shining sea ; 
One with a crown of raven hair, 
And one with her tresses flowing free, 
And the golden noon-rays nestling there. 

u Heart of mine" — thus the dark maid cried — 
" None save a soldier shall e'er command ! 

With a soul of flame, and an eye of pride, 

And his gleaming sword in his good right hand !" 

" Mine I give" — said the fair-haired maid — 

" Even as thou, to a soldier's care : 
In the cause of Truth is his soul arrayed, 

With the sword of Faith and the shield of Prayer." 



ii. 

Two youths walked by the forest green ; 

One with a haughty brow and eye, 
And one with a calm and gentle mien 

That cheered the soul of the passer-by. 



28 WAR ECHOES. 

" Raven locks and an eye of jet ; 

A proud lipp'd maid with a tropic cheek ; 
Such is the snare for my heart set !" 

Thus did the haughty Southron speak. 

" Tresses of gold," his comrade said ; 

" Eyes like the depths of a summer sea ; 
Cheeks where the bosom's truth is read ; 

Such is the guileless heart for me !" 

in. 

Two by the shining sea once more : 

Tresses of gold, and raven hair : 
And two in the shade of the forest hoar : 

The haughty brow, and the brow so fair. 

Crisped hands in the locks of jet : 

The proud lips clenched, and the dark eye sear ; 
But the tresses of gold in a sable net, 

And the blue eye bright with a chastening tear ! 

The fire quenched in the Southron eye : 
The dark brow prone on the rebel sod ; 

But the fair face turned to the summer sky, 
And the patriot soul at peace with God. 



THE CRIPPLE AT THE GATE. 29 



THE CRIPPLE AT THE GATE. 

LOOK ! how the hoofs and wheels to-day 
Scatter the dust on the broad highway, 
Where Beauty, and Fashion, and Wealth, and Pride, 
On saddle and cushion serenely ride ! 
The very steeds have a conscious prance 

Of pride in their elegant freight ! 
Love and laughter like jewels slip 
From the sparkling eye and the merry lip : 
You never would think that the Nation's life 
Hung on the thread of a desperate strife, 
Unless from these you should turn, by chance, 

To the Cripple at the Gate. 

Weary, and footsore, and ragged, and soiled, 
Through the summer glare he has slowly toiled 
Along the edge of the broad highway, 
Since the early dawn of the westering day : 
His rags are flecked with the dusky foam 
That flew from the gilded bits 



30 WAR ECHOES. 

Of the champing steeds that passed him by, 
And a haggard shadow is in his eye ; 
But it is not the gloom of an envious pain ! 
He has left a limb on the battle-plain, 
And, to win his way to his distant home, 
At my gate, a Beggar, he sits ! 

He tells me his tale in a simple way : 

" I had nothing," he says, u except my pay, 

And a wife and four little girls, and so 

I sent all my money to them, you know ! 

When I lost my limb, Sir — but that I'm lame 

I do not complain, for, you see, 
'Tis the fortune of war, and it might be worse; 
And I'd lose the other to stop the curse 
Of this terrible strife ! But I meant to say, 
When I left the hospital t'other day, 
I did think I had a kind of a claim 

To be sent to my village free. 

" Don't you think it hard yourself, Sir ? True, 
There's a hundred dollars of bounty due 
In three years, or when the war's over ; but how 
Long may that be — can you tell me now ? 



THE CRIPPLE AT THE GATE. 31 

I did not enlist for bounty, I trust ; 

My conscience I never have sold ; 
But how does it look for a soldier to c tramp/ 
Begging his way like a vagabond scamp, 
From the fields where he often risked his life, 
To the home where he left his babes and wife, 
In a uniform made of tatters and dust 

Instead of the l blue and gold ?' 

"Whose fault this is, Sir, I do not know," 

Said the wayworn man as he rose to go ; 

" But of this, alas ! I am sure — the sight 

Of a soldier returning in such a plight 

To the home whence, a few short months ago, 

He marched in a gallant band, 
With music, and banners, and shining steel, 
Will dull more ears to the battle-peal, 
And cause more bosoms with doubt to swell, 
Than the secret traitor's deadliest spell : 
Don't you see yourself, Sir, it must be so?" 

And he sighed as I held out my hand. 

Lofty carriage and low coupe 

Still whirl the dust on the broad highway : 



32 WAR ECHOES. 

Beauty, and Fashion, and Wealth, and Pride, 

Still through the roseate twilight ride, 

With love, and laughter, and prancing steed, 

As if Pleasure were all life's fate. 
But I gaze no more on the joyous train, 
For my eye is fixed with a steadfast strain 
On the tattered soldier's halting stride, 
Till his tall form sinks down the dark hill-side ; 
Then I cry, " Thank God ! he hath noiv no need 

To beg at the stranger's gate !" 



THE NOONDAY STREET. 33 



THE NOONDAY STREET. 

I WALKED the city's noonday street, 
Wrapt in a veil of idle thought, 
That oft betrayed my careless feet 
To wander from the path I sought. 

In silken rustlings, to and fro, 

The flock of Fashion fluttered there ; 

And woman's laugh, of silver flow, 
With fragrant ripples stirred the air. 

The sun sheen glanced on gem and gold, 
Along the causeway's glittering side; 

While o'er its echoing centre rolled 
Full many an equipage of pride. 

I strayed, and knew not where I strayed j 
Till, sudden, on my heart a pain— 

And en my path there fell a shade,— 
That rent my veil of thought in twain. 



34 WAR ECHOES. 

I looked, and lo ! the vision grew 
To life ! I stood beneath an arch, 

And saw them passing, two by two, 
And heard the echoes of their march. 

They bore two torn and blood-stained flags ; 

No silken vesture, gold, nor gem : 
Their battle-trophies and their rags 

Were all the sun might gild for them ! 

Scarred, crippled, crutched, they onward pressed, 
With music whose firm measure made 

Their tottering step a bitter jest : 

They passed ! Once more I onward strayed. 

They passed : I loitered in their path : 

They toiled the throngs of Fashion through : 

Not one of those, methought, but hath 
From all of these a life-debt due ! 

They passed : afar I followed them, 

Walking the noonday street once more — 

The laugh still rang ! on gold and gem 
The sun still glittered as before ! 



THE BROKEN SWORD. 35 



THE BROKEN SWORD. 

HER soul caught up Hope's shining shield 
Against the dark assaults of Doubt : 
She bade him bravely to the field 

Where Death holds Glory's standard out. 

She girt the good steel on his thigh, 

And, u Rumor's random shafts," she said, 

" Full oft are poisoned with a lie 

That strikes the unwitting victim dead. 

" If you — God give me strength ! — should bleed, 
Yet stanch life's current ere it fail ; 

Send me this scabbard ! I will heed 
No other token, tongue, nor tale ! 

" If captive ; in the rebel host 

Some youth, heart-mated, there must be 

Who, for her sake or loved or lost, 

Will speed your ransomed blade to me. 



36 WAR ECHOES. 

" If — if — I cannot speak the word ! 

Pray some true comrade — at the worst — 
In pity hither bear the sword ; 

But bid, oh ! bid him break it first !" 

Time sped. And Rumor still forbore 
To strike her with its venomed dart : 

Hope's buckler, still undimmed, she wore, 
A constant ^Egis, on her heart ! 

Till — surely 'twas a love divine 

That armed her soul with daily prayer — 

A soldier found her at the shrine, 
And laid a broken falchion there ! 

" You broke the blade at bis command ?" 

She faltered. " Nay, true heart, not so ! 
Twas shivered, in his good right hand, 
Full on the forehead of his foe !" 

" To the just cause I freely gave 

My better life," she said, and pressed 

To her pale lips the shattered glaive : 
" To God I dedicate the rest ! 



THE BROKEN SJVORD. 

"Yet is my mission here to do! 

I hear bis stricken brethren groan : 
Many their pangs, their soothers few ; — 

Be they my heralds to the Throne !" 

Self-vowed, to wounds and death she bears 
Her Master's healing and His word ; 

But ever at her side she wears, 
For rosary, the broken sword ! 



37 



38 IV A R ECHOES. 



THE THREE WATCHERS. 

WISTFULLY through the sunshine, 
Wistfully through the rain, 
They watch for his returning 
Who will never return again. 

Three little cherub faces, 

Close to the window pane, 
Wistfully watching and waiting 

For him who returns not again. 

Frigidly under the sunbeams, 

Frigidly under the storm, 
Where the battle dead are thickest, 

Lies a pallid and pulseless form. 

Sign, nor mark, nor token 

To tell of the hero's name ; 
But clasped to his gory bosom 

Is a fragile pi&ure-frame. 



THE THREE WATCHERS. 39 

A simple, poor medallion, 

Death-clutched with a wisp of grass ; 
But three little cherub faces 

Smile through the blood-stained glass. 

Rude are the hands that lay him 

On the soldier's humble pall ; 
Yet tears from the bearded faces 

On the cherub faces fall. 

The grasp of the Dead hath stiffened 

Round the picture on his breast, 
And they leave those faces smiling 

On the nameless soldier's rest. 
* * * # 

Then there came a voice, like an echo, 

Through the sunshine and the rain : 
" Look up ! for on earth, your father 

Shall never return again !" 

And the eldest, looking upward, 

" Our Father in heaven," she said, 
" Thou hast taken our other father, 

Let us come to Thee instead !" 



4° WAR ECHOES. 



"SISTERS OF MERCY." 

AWAY ! disseisors of God's Word, 
Who think that Heaven its path directs 
By guide-posts, with the cant of se£ts 
Whose writings, all save yours, are blurred ! 

What are your glimmering rushlights worth 
Amid the radiance all divine 
That makes these humble Sisters shine 

Like angels ministering on earth ? 

If ye would learn how Heaven is won, 
Go where your stricken brethren lie 
In long, pale ranks of agony, 

And see how Mercy's work is done ! 

List, where the wounded soldier sleeps, 
The name, that, potent as a prayer, 
Sighed through the lips of anguish there, 

Like balm o'er all his senses creeps ! 



"SISTERS OF MERCrr 41 

Seek those dread chambers, if ye dare, 
Where lurks in every passing breath 
Contagion, with his brother Death, 

And reverence Mercy's mission there ! 

There is no peril, pain, nor toil, 

No wounds, no pestilence, no despair, 
But finds some white-coifed Sister there 

To pour the sacred wine and oil ! 

Know, ye who prate of " form" and " law," 

That one Samaritan in deed 

May sanctify the faultiest creed, 
While you are grappling with a straw ! 



4 2 WAR ECHOES. 



AT THE OUTPOST. 

" t | AHERE is no moon, but the night is clear- 

JL Clear and cold, and the stars are few. 
In the shadow of Death I am walking here : 
In the shadow of Death, at twenty-two ! 

" A year ago, on a night like this — 
One brief year ! — from a maid I knew, 

In the shadow of Love I asked a kiss : 
In the shadow of Love she gave me two. 

tc Two, and a third, and another yet — 
One more yet, and she whispered, ' Go ! 

On the hazard of strife my love I set: 

On the hazard of strife, for weal or woe !' 

" c My country first !' Oh, the peerless maid ! 

Not her peer hath the maid I know ! 
4 My country first,' in that kiss she said : 

c My country first !' and she bade me go. 



AT THE OUTPOST. 43 

" Say you a drink ? Good comrade, no ! 

Ah ! the love of a maid like mine 
Flushes the heart with a godlike glow : 

Flushes the heart like Olympian wine I 

" A cypher of gold with a braid of hair 

Clasps my wrist, and if I should fall, 

This to my maid I pray you bear — 

This to my maid, comrade — that is all!" 
# * % * # 

There is no moon, but the sky is fair — 
The sky is fair, though the stars be few. 

In the shadow of Death he is lying there : 
In the shadow of Death, at twenty-two I 

His pulse is still, and his wrist is bare. 

Clasp of gold with its sunny braid 
The slender wrist of a maid shall wear — 

The slender wrist of his peerless maid 4 



44 WAR ECHOES. 



ONLY ONE. 

'TTMIERE is no cloud in all the sky: 

JL I hear the distant bugles play : 
You tremble, sister ! so do I — 

Our soldiers both come home to-day." 

" One cloud there is, Maud, on the blue : 
'Tis but a rustic horn you hear : 

I tremble ? Nay ! Or, if I do, 
It is not for myself I fear." 

"Not for yourself! For whom then, pray? 

For whom can you have cause to feel ? — 
Those are the bugles, Anne, I say, 

And — ah ! I see the flash of steel !" 

The sabres glitter in the sun : 

The war-worn ranks ride slowly past : 

One soldier halts — ah ! only one ! — 
And cries, " At last, beloved, at last !" 



ONLY ONE. 45 

His steed stands, wistful-eyed, apart, 

And looks upon the ripening grain ; 
But who is to the rider's heart 

Thus pressed, again and yet again ? 

Alas ! one cloud still spans the sky, 

And still the distant bugles play ! 
Poor Maud ! the ranks have long passed by ; 

But only one came home to-day ! 



46 WAR ECHOES. 



PROTO-MARTYR NOSTER. 

HE wore nor crown nor purple ; held no state 
Hedged by the spectre of the "Right Divine" 
That haunts the visions of a kingly line : 
He was his People's Chieftain, and their mate ! 
Chosen from their midst as meet to bear the weight 
Of office worthily ; ay, more ! approved 
By sorest trial steadfast to the trust 
His worth had won ! To save the land he loved, 
Amid the storm of strife, the heat of lust, 
And envy's gloom, and faction's blinding dust, 
He kept the unflinching tenor of his path 
Toward its bright zenith — till the Archfiend's spite 
Belched, hot from hell, a minion of his wrath, 
With one fell blow to plunge a world in night ! 

April 15, 1865. 



VAG AR I E S 



HOW WINTER COMETH. 49 



HOW WINTER COMETH. 

E comes ! The tardy Winter comes ! 



H 



I hear his footsteps through the Nights ! 
I hear his vanguard from the heights 
March through the pines with muffled drums ! 

His naked feet are on the mead : 
The grass-blades stiffen in his path : 
No tear for child of Earth he hath; 

No pity for her tender seed ! 

The bare oaks shudder at his breath : 
A moment by the stream he stays — 
Its melody is mute ! A glaze 

Creeps o'er its dimples, as of death ! 

From fettered stream and blackened moor, 
The city's walls he, silent, nears : 
The mansions of the Rich he fears ! 

He storms the cabins of the Poor ! 
3 



50 



VAGARIES. 

The curtained couch — the glowing hearth — 
The frost-rimed Greybeard's power defy : 
He curses as he hurries by — 

And strikes the Beggar, dead, to Earth ! 

For every gleaming hall he spares, 
A hundred hearthless hovels hold 
Hearts pulseless, crisp with ice, and cold, 

Watched by a hundred grim Despairs ! 

The forests grow by His command 
Who saith, " He lendeth to the Lord 
Who giveth to the Poor !" Your hoard 

Is His ! Ye — stewards of the land ! 

Here is your Mission ! Ye who feed 
Your lavish fires ! Not afar, 
But at your doors, your Heathen are ! 

God's Poor — your creditors ! Take heed ! 

The path is long to Pagan shores : 
Their skies are sunny : God o'er all ! 
The Winter's deadly harvests fall 

Around you ! Deal your Master's stores ! 



HOW SPRING COMETH. 51 



HOW SPRING COMETH. 

MARK where she comes— the hoyden Spring ! 
Her nascent bosom swelling fast, 
Her fresh lips parting to the blast, 
And all her beauties blossoming! 

She wantons with the regal Sun, 
And bids the inconstant god caress 
The very turf her wild feet press, 

The humblest shrub she breathes upon. 

The slumberous draperies that close 
Around the palaces of Earth, 
Flap — startled by her passing mirth — 

And fall! She tarries not for those! 

But from the squalid window-sill 

She sweeps the scanty veil aside 

And enters, radiant as a bride — 
The sun-kiss hovering round her still ! 



$2 VAGARIES. 

Like music here her laughter falls ; 
And echoes — as of Summer bees, 
And bird-songs through soft-swaying trees- 
Seem quivering on the naked walls ! 

Echoes too often false as fair ! 

So far from actual sense they seem, 
The listener holds them as a dream 

Whose waking hath no promise there ! 

Ye microscopic souls, that cling 

To such small specks of spirit-light 
That all beyond your reach is night ; — 

Ye, bigots ! — rob the Poor of Spring ! 

Ye bar them from the fresh free sod ! 
To these wan children of the soil 
Ye make the Sabbath-Rest a toil — 

A dungeon of the house of God ! 

Fling wide your sombre gates, and bid 
These weary workers forth, to share 
Life's heritage of spring-tide ! There 

The secret of God's Rest is hid ! 



STORM AND SUN. 



53 



STORM AND SUN. 

cc^KT'OU think there will be a storm," you say ? 

X So do I ! 
In my soul it hath lowered all day ! All day, 
A canopy, storm-glutted, sullen, and gray, 
But cloven at times by the lightning's play, 
Hath hung o'er my spirit-sky ! 

" O ! you only spoke of the gathering gloom 

Overhead ?" 
Ay ! a ripple of rain-drops, a flash, a boom !— 
And the sun-gold again in your curtained room, 
And the air all steeped in a misty perfume 

From the grateful earth-throats shed ! 

But I — I speak of a deadlier cloud — 

Do you heed ? 
Its thunders mayhap will not be so loud, 
But its bolt will strike ! — and a crimsoned shroud 
May reek in its track ! Is your hard heart cowed ? 

Dare you taunt me to the deed ? 



54 



VAGARIES. 



Ha ! ha ! Do you think I have not seen ? 

If he creep 

But once more, my heart and its sunlight between — 

My heart and its sunlight ; you know what I mean— 

The sod that he tramples shall not be green 

With all the tears you can weep ! 
* # -x- * 

The storm came, and found us silent — and sped ! 

Then, she spake : 
" Love is not all woven of one bright thread j 
There is steel with its gold, you have often said : 
I was hard ! And you ? Let it pass ! Overhead 

All is gold ! Will not your sun break ?" 



CATALPA. 55 



CATALPA. 

THE South-wind in sensuous kisses 
Sweeps warm o'er my humid lips, 
And wanders with amorous touches 
Through my hair, like an airy wanton 
With invisible finger-tips. 

I lie in the purple clover, 

And over my languid head 
The Catalpa's proud-lipped flowers 
In a white and purple splendour 

Their fragrant incense shed. 

I lie breast-deep in the clover, 

While the broad Catalpa-leaves 
With a slumberous swaying lull me, 
Like the soft seductive dream-spell 
That the Eastern Houri weaves. 

I lie and dream of a Summer 

All flushed with the sensuous glow 



56 



VAGARIES. 

Of a love that swept like the South-wind 
Over every chord of passion — 
A Summer, ah ! long ago ! 

I dream of the amorous fingers 
Of one who was not of air ; 

And I thrill with a nameless rapture 

As her hand's electric velvet 
Threads the tangles of my hair. 

I dream of a humid fragrance 

More warm than the South-wind's kiss 
More sweet than the sweetest flowers ; 
And lips upon lips lie folded 

In a lingering dream of bliss. 

I dream of a murmur softer 

Than the whisper of Houri spell ; 
And through its delicious music 
The echoes of two souls' passion 
In ravishing accents swell. 
* * * * 

Alas ! for the South-wind faileth ; 
Alas ! for the broad leaves rest j 



CATA LP A. 

Alas ! for the proud-lipped flowers 
Are shrunken, and from the clover 
The purple hath gone to the West. 

Alas ! for the warm caresses ! 

Alas ! for the passion-glow ! 
And alas ! for the love's soft music 
That I heard in the swaying Catalpa, 

Of a Summer long ago ! 
3* 



57 



58 VAGARIES. 



THE SECRET OF THE ASPEN 

A CLOUD hangs over the morning 
This drear Autumnal day, 
And the robins that sang on the Aspen 
Have shivered, and flown away. 

The Aspen itself is leafless, 

Save the topmost spray ; but there, 

Two last withered leaves are trembling, 
Though there is not a breath of air. 

A weird old tree is that Aspen ; 

A low-voiced wizard — a seer — 
In whose solemn, quaint unquiet, 

A secret of life is clear. 

Through the fevered flush of summer, 
When the stillness is zenith-deep, 

And within the slumbering forests 
The winds have nestled to sleep ; — 



THE SECRET OF THE ASPEN. 

That Aspen alone is restless, 
And trembles in fitful starts, 

Like the guilty, when memory's poignard 
Pricks the canker in their hearts. 

And to-day, those two leaves, lonely 
And sear, on its topmost spray, 

Seem like two souls, fluttering faintly 
To pass from their shrunken clay : — 

Two souls that, in life's fair Spring-tide, 
Climbed nearest its golden zone, 

To wither thus in life's Autumn, 
On its bleakest summit — alone ! 

Yes, a weird old tree is that Aspen ! 

A low-voiced wizard — a seer ! 
And he who will sit in its shadow, 

This secret of life may hear : — 

Through its solemn, quaint unquiet, 

A wondrous whisper comes, 
Like the murmur of bees in clover, 

Or an echo of far-off drums : — 



59 



60 VAGARIES. 

And he who lists, when the shadows 

Are creeping, like ghosts, from the West, 

May hear : — " Since the doom of Adam, 
The Soul's one curse is Unrest !" 



THE GLOFE-KISS. 



6l 



THE GLOVE-KISS. 

BELLE kissed me ! Did she kiss me ? 
Ah, no ! I slumbered still ! 
Rests there a sleeping shadow where 
The sun-rays kiss the hill ? 

Belle kissed me ! Did she kiss me ? 

Ah, no ! My brow ne'er flushed ! 
Pales still the longing fruit, o'er which 

The Summer noon hath gushed ? 

Sly Belle ! Thou didst not kiss me ! 

Else would this heart of mine 
Thrill yet, as when the sensuous lip 

Is moist with royal wine. 

So thus, coy Belle, / kiss thee^ 
And still the gloves are thine ! 

"More blest to give than to receive" — 
The precept is divine ! 



62 VAGARIES. 



LATAKEA. 

SITTING alone in my room ; 
Smoking Latakea ; 
Suddenly comes — an Idea, 
Fluttering in through the gloom : — 
Fluttering — muttering — strange fancies uttering- 
Floats this Idea through the gloom. 

" Fancy yourself a wreath 
Of that Latakea," — 
Whispers the floating Idea — 

" Wavering out on the breath : 
Wavering — quavering — figureless, save a ring 

Swept out of curl by a breath ! 

" Open your window, and see 

How the wreath will sail 

Eagerly out to the gale ; 
Vaporing forth, to be free : 
Vaporing — tapering coyly — then capering 
Madly, with joy to be free ! 



LATAKEA. 63 

" Short-lived folly, oh Wreath ! 

Headstrong Latakea !" — 

Mutters the cynic Idea — 
" Venturing in the wind's teeth ! 
Venturing bent your ring — finally sent your ring 
Out-streaming, broken, to death ! 

ct So with the smoker, youth ! 

Merely wreath and ring ! 

Out into life you fling ; 
Blundering on after Truth : 
Blundering — wondering — while the Storm's sundering 
All of your life, save the ruth !" 

Thus, all alone in my room, 

Smoking Latakea, 

Tauntingly came this Idea, 
Fluttering in through the gloom : 
Fluttering — muttering — these fancies uttering — 
Swept the Idea through the gloom ! 



64 VAGARIES. 



DOGWOOD LEAVES. 

1. 

LOOK, Helen, the Autumn is young ! As yet, 
No gold in her kirtle of green she weaves : 
But mark, ere her earliest sun is set, 

How the red blood glows in the dogwood leaves ! 

11. 

We plucked the dogwood blossoms, you know, — 
The odorous blossoms of white and gold — 

Together, one Spring-time, long ago. 

Not long ? O ! yes ! You have grown so old ! 

in. 
So old ? It was only this Spring, you say ? 
\ Nay ! your heart is calm and your hand is cold ; 
Was it thus — did you turn your head away 

When we gathered the blossoms of white and gold? 

IV. 

No ! those were Spring-Mornings of Faith ! You said : — 
" Love doubts not, nor reasons ; love believes !" 

Now — alas! where the blossoms their odors spread, 
There are only the blood-red dogwood leaves ! 



EPHEMERA. 



65 



EPHEMERA. 

I HEARD these words as I passed him 
" The River of Life," quoth he : 
He was old, and he spake as in terror ; 
For, if he had sailed down that River, 
His shallop was near the sea ! 

But I, in my heart replying 

To the words this old man said, 

I cried : " He speaketh a folly 

Who likens Life to a River !" 
He halted, and turned his head. 

I cried ; " Life is not a River ! 

For the River ebbs and flows ; 
And the leaf that it floated seaward 
At morn, — lo ! the flood-tide flingeth 

On the flower-bank whence it rose !" 

" What waif of Life, that hath floated 
To the Gulf without a name, 



66 VAGARIES. 

From the margin of Time, — Old Greybeard — 
Met ever a wave returning, 

To render it whence it came ?" 

But the old man smiled, as he trembled, 
And — u The River of Life " — he said, 
And lifted his withered finger 
And pointed, where, into the ocean 
The sunset heaven still bled ; 

And it seemed as a thirst and a terror 

Were at strife in this old man's soul ; 
And he murmured : " The waves of that River 
Are the flood that, forever backward, 
The waifs of this Life shall roll !" 



EPHEMERA. 6j 



EPHEMERA 

A WREN-PAIR built under my window;— 
He sang, while she raised her brood : 
At first they were shy ; but after, 
They daintily gathered the morsels 
I sat by the lintel and strewed. 

Then the little ones, too, came bravely, 

And trustfully picked their fill, 
And chirruped a fearless chorus 
To the elder's grateful allegro 

From my very window-sill. 

" You are going," I said to Inez : 

" You have learned to trust me, I know ; — 
And to love ?" — " I have learned to love you !" 
" Both will fade, ere another Summer, 

As words that are writ on snow !" 

She laughed — she frowned ; " You are cruel ! 
My whole heart's pages shall show 



68 VAGARIES. 

These past Summer lessons, forever I" 
The wrens, too, went with that Summer : 
I sighed, and bade Inez go ! 

A wren-pair sought under my window 
Their nest, in the olden spot : 

I sprinkled crumbs on the lintel ; 

But the birds were as shy as strangers, 
And the Summer lessons — forgot ! 

I watched, with an anxious patience, 
And hoped, with a nameless pain, 

For the fearless faith's renewal ; 

But the olden Summer lessons 
Had all to be learned again \ 

Yet the wrens will sing on my lintel 

With the olden trust, I know : 
While the Summer lessons, written 
On those heart-pages of Inez, 

Are as words that were writ on snow ! 



FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA. 69 



FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA. 

OVER THE SNOW. 

VER the frozen highway; — 
Gleaming with crystalline light ; — 
Hiding the skeleton-furrows 
In a velvet robe of white ; — 

Seemingly slumber inviting, 
Stainless, unruffled, serene ; — 

Thus lay the snow for my journey 
Omega and Alpha between ! 

Out from the sun-girt Alpha ; — 
Forth o'er the glittering crust ; — 

Leaving firm foot-prints behind me ; — 
On to Omega — and Dust ! 

Saying — " O ! deep-pressed foot-prints ! 

Henceforth, not looking in vain, 
Often from restful Omega 

My heart-gaze shall see you again !" 



70 VAGARIES. 

" Many will mark you, who love me : 
Where I have stumbled, will leap ; 

Where I have slumbered, will hasten ; 
Where I have fallen, will weep !" 

Foolishest folly of follies ! 

Still in the shadows afar 
Lurketh the restful Omega ! 

Vanished the foot-prints are ! 

Vanished the snow, and the foot-prints ! 

Rugged and furrowed the crust ! 
Over the highway I struggle 

Still, to Omega — and Dust ! 



THE QUEENS' FEAST-NIGHT. Jl 



THE FEAST-NIGHT OF THE 

TWO QUEENS. 

LAST night was a Queen's Feast-night ! 
The Queen of the timid stars 
That tremble in legions of scintillant light 
Around the red pennon of Mars ! 

ii. 

Yes ! last night the Moon-Queen won 

Her maidenhood's richest prime ; 
And her radiant face snatched a kiss from the Sun, 

To illumine the night-march of Time. 

i. 

Last night was a Queen's Feast-night ! 

The Queen of my Life — my Love ! 
The planet that thrills me with throbbing delight, 

As the Moon thrills the ether above. 

ii. 

Yes ! last night my Heart-Queen won 

Her maidenhood's furthest goal ; 
And her kisses still glow, like a central Sun, 

Through the innermost night of my soul ! 



72 VAGARIES. 



THE MESSENGER-YEARS. 

OF lines to the years that fly, 
And lines to the years that are born, 
There are pages on pages ! 
But the clouds in each sunset sky, 
And the clouds in each sky of morn, 
Have never seemed twice the same, men say, 
Through all the past ages. 

Then why should I stifle the song 
That wells from my heart to my lips, 

Of the Flying, and the Coming ? 
The Two Years shadows are long ; 
And many may sit in eclipse, 
Whose darkened hearts will be glad, perchance, 

To list to my humming. 

Why do ye sad tears shed, 
With your dim eyes backward bent 
On the Year that is reckoned? 
Let your Dead bury their Dead ! 
Years are but Messengers, sent 



THE MESSENGER-TEARS. 73 

Forward from God to man : they return 

When the Great Hand has beckoned ! 

Is it the fault of the Sage, 

If his counsel be spurned by the herd 

For the mountebank's leer ? 
Scourge ye your Master's Page, 
If ye hear, and yet heed not the word 
That he brings from His awful lips, and breathes 
In your obdurate ear ? 

No ! If the errand be sped, 
And the Messenger-Year flit back 

To the halls of the Past ; — 
Let your Dead bury their Dead ! 
Pause not to weep on their track ! 
He that hath slept, be it never so long, 
Shall waken at last ! 

Waken, then, ye that have slept ! 
List not the echoes of Then — 

They are fathomless air ! 
If through past shadows ye crept ; 
Spring toward the sunshine like men ! 
Leap to the promise of Now, and hail 

A new Messenger there ! 



74 VAGARIES. 



THE KITE. 

UPLIFTED in the invisible palms 
Of the strong North Wind, 
It seeks the clear, celestial calms 

That bask, sun-tranced, in the Upper Space ; 
But still regards with mournful face 
The Earth it leaves behind. 

Anon, made drunken by the abyss 

Of the giddy height, 
It courts the clouds with wanton kiss, 

And, reeling, thinks amid the stars to sing, 
Forgetful of the sordid string 
That rules its span of flight. 

But lo ! a "messenger" is sped 

Up the murmuring cord ! 
This fluttering waif — this paper shred — 
Sufliceth for a token of the bond 
That saith : " Thou mayst not soar beyond 
Will of thine Urchin Lord !" 



THE KITE. 75 

Thus, in the invisible palms of Thought 

My Spirit is borne 
Where glimpses of the Light are caught, 
And, drunken with the ecstasy of flight, 
Spreads eager pinions from the Night 
Unto Empyrean Morn. , 

With closed eyes hither turned, it flies 

Upon wanton wing 
Through clouds where Memory lurking lies — 
Beyond the troubled Present's Middle Space — 
Zenithward still ; nor feels its race 
Checked by Earth's sordid string. 

But lo ! along the chord of Life 

There passeth a thrill : 
A pang — a sense of breathing strife — 
Are token of the inexorable bond 
That saith : — " Thou mayst not soar beyond 
Thy Despot-Body's will!" 



76 VAGARIES. 



THE TWO SHADOWS. 

IT was a frolic-morn in May : 
The world looked young and very fair, 
That morn, to us : 'Tis now — O, Claire !- 
How long ago I dare not say ! 

Our hearts were very full of mirth : 

We thought that Life could never pall : 
We sate beneath the garden wall, 

In love with every thing on earth ! 

The Years, we thought, were all our own. 

Claire gaily snatched away her hand ; 

Then bade me, " on my peril, stand !" 
And sketched my shadow on the stone. 

It was a profile round and fair : 

No angles marred its lines of youth : 

We laughed ; and then, with feebler truth, 

I sketched the glorious face of Claire. 



THE TWO SHADOWS. JJ 

A Life ! O God ! how mere a speck — 
A microscopic shallop — tossed 
On the vast waves of Time, and lost ! 

Too frail to leave a trace of wreck ! 

The Years we counted cycles, flown ! 

My shadow now, sharp edged as care ! 

And not a trace, on earth, of Claire, 
Save on my heart, and that cold stone ! 



78 VAGARIES. 



THE SNOW. 

A FANTASY. 

HOW it snows ! 
Through the blackness of Night, 
How silent — how white 
Drop the trembling flakes ! What a luminous light 
Upward glows 
From the breast of the snows ! 
From the pulseless, untrodden breast of the snows ! 

One soft sigh 
Floating out on the air 
From an infant at prayer, 
If it met with an errant snow-flake there, 
This would die ! 
This would melt in the sigh — 
Would dissolve to a tear, in that infantine sigh ! 

Yet the gale 
With its bitterest blast 
Through the snow-flakes has passed ; 



THE SNOW. 79 

And lo ! they are sunk to their slumber at last, 
In the vale, 
In spite of the gale ! 
Still virgin, unmolten, in spite of the gale ! 

So the Soul ! — 
If it wander astray 
Through the errors of clay, 
And meet with a treacherous breath, on its way 
To its goal : — 
This shall melt the lost Soul ! 
Though never so feeble — shall melt the lost Soul ! 

So the Soul ! — 
Through the fierce blasts of Care ; — 
Through the nights of Despair ; — 
If the faith in its mission and Master be there ; — 
To the goal 
Will attain the pure Soul ! 
Will, in triumph eternal, attain the pure Soul ! 



8o VAGARIES. 



THE LAMP. 

T ■ "\WAS written — " Absence conquers Love !" 
A Forsooth, fond fools, go weep ! 

A blindfold vigil well may prove 
A weary thing to keep ! 

But Friendship is an Anchorite, 

Whose ever wakeful eye 
Turns, hope-illumined, toward the light, 

And marks the days go by. 

And Friendship's vestal lamp will burn 

Within its lonely fane, 
Till its far Priestess shall return 

To give it oil again ! 

But ah ! should she, for other shrines, 

Forget the distant spark ; — 
The lonely lamp no longer shines : 

The silent fane grows dark ! 



THE LAMP. 

Not Absence, then, nor verge of space, 
Alone, dims Friendship's glow ; 

But Silence, with averted face, 
May let the lamp burn low ! 



81 



82 



VAGARIES. 



IN THE PAVILION. 

LIKE slender serpents, quaintly coiled and golden, 
Along the path lie strewn the chestnut-blooms, 
Even to the portal, moss-begirt and moulden, 
In forest glooms. 

Through vaulted chestnut-boughs, dark-leaved and solemn, 

The full-orbed glances of the sunset wind, 
In crimson threads, around each crumbling column 
With ivy twined. 

A sentinel crow, guarding his comrades' pillage, 

From a tall oak his warning discord flings, 
And ever and anon from some far village 
The vesper rings. 

How long since, in that wood-embayed Pavilion, 

Hand-clasped they sate, and hymned the eternal song 
With one refrain — " My love ! my own ! my Lilian !" 
Ay, heart, how long ? 



IN THE PAVILION. 83 

The chestnut-blooms that fell in golden mazes 
That halcyon summer, now in ashen mould 
Lie withered, as the heart of him who gazes, 
Calm-pulsed, and cold ! 

Only one summer, say'st thou? Fool! Whole ages 
Have heaped the sear leaves of dead passion-flowers 
Upon life's garden, since those gilded pages 
Marked its soft hours. 

Sit with me here, Pet ; let me whisper " Lilian — 

My Lilian !" Pshaw ! I crave your pardon, Sweet ; 
There's a strange echo in this old Pavilion 
That will repeat ! 

Come, fair Caprice ! see ! yonder shadow flitting 

Through the gray wood, Kate, is the Bird of Night : 
Let us go in ; that laugh is more befitting 
A scene of light ! 



84 VAGARIES. 



REST. 

1. 

HE walked upon the silent shore, 
And marked the restful billows roll, 
And heard the song their surges bore, 
Whose burden evermore 

Found siren echoes in his soul. 
" Life is not worth its woe," they said ; 
■' But Rest is with the Dead — the Dead !" 

II. 

Athwart the slowly dying Day — 
Above the slowly swaying sea — 

On the horizon, far away, 

A luminous castle lay, 

With crimson banners floating free, 

In bar and blazon manifold, 

Across the sunset fields of gold. 

in. 
" O ! tristful truth ! O ! lustrous lie !" 
From out his struggling spirit came 



REST. 85 

Unsought, this double-tongued reply: 
He looked upon the sky- 
Whence flashed the castle's oriflame, 
And murmured, " Would my soul were free ! 
Is not there Rest, O ! siren Sea ?" 



IV. 

The golden glories faded fast 

From crumbling tower and battlement: 
A pall, funereal, ashen, vast, 
O'er all the west was cast : 

The banners from the walls were rent : 
And still the siren surges said : — 
"Ay! Rest is with the Dead— the Dead]" 

v. 
Then all was darkness for a space : 

He stood upon the verge of Doom ! 
Alas ! no mortal eye might trace 
The horror in his face. 

He heard the sullen surges boom, 
And bent his brow above the brine, 
And moaned, " Thy Rest, O Sea ! be mine ! s 



86 VAGARIES. 

VI. 

But sweetly — even as he spoke, 

And stretched his longing arms afar — 

C4ose to his ear a whisper woke ; 

And on the Night there broke 

The splendor of the Evening Star ! 

Warm lips to his cold lips were pressed, 

That sighed : — " Ungrateful ! Love is Rest !' 



AU REVOIR. 87 



AU REVOIR. 

1. 

'/* g "SWAS but a year ago to-day ! 

JL We drank love then, as revellers wine : 
Love was our life, wc used to say : 

I quaffed from your lips, you from mine. 

11. 
The parting hour struck like a knell : 

The dark ship seemed a funeral car : 
I strove in vain to say — Farewell ! 

Your lips closed mine with — au revoir ! 

in. 
To those two words of hope I clung 

As clings a wrecked one to the spar : 
Forgive me, for my heart was young, 

And youth trusts woman's " au revoir." 

IV. 

Last night we met again — we two, 

Alone ! . . . None save the stars may tell 

How yields the old love to the new, 

And "An Revoir'" becomes " Farewell !" 



88 VAGARIES. 

THE TREASURE-SHIPS: 

A FRAGMENT. 

THE Master looked across the sea : 
" Lo ! where the ships come back to me ! 

" Treasure of Southern isles they bring, 
And sweet-voiced Southern maids, that sing ! 

" Rare maidens, in whose liquid eyes 
An ocean, mooned by Love, there lies ! 

" Ho ! ho ! the Greybeard drank the wine, 
And all these treasure-ships are mine !" 

Again he looked across the sea : 

" Blow, South wind ! blow my maids to me !" 

The South wind blew across the sea : 
The breakers laughed in devilish glee. 

The surf-steeds tossed their hoary mane : 
He looked across the sea again. 

The moon-rays, through a broken cloud, 
Fell on a Dead Man in his shroud ! 

Strange wrecks were dashed upon the shore : 
The murderer saw his ships no more ! 



MA MIE: A GASCONADE. 89 



MA MIE: 

A GASCONADE. 
I. 

AN April Rainbow, flecked with every hue 
Of sun and sky and sea, 
Glowing through opals of coruscant dew : 

Thus through my heart's prism glows — Ma mie ! 

11. 
A wild, warm wind, that, flushing through the vine 

Of sun-loved Gascony, 
Thrills its pale juices with the blush of wine : 
Thus through my heart's blood thrills — Ma mie ! 

in. 
A sigh down-borne with fragrance now, that stoops 

O'er some low balcony, 
And its rich freight to some bared bosom droops : 
Thus to my bared heart droops — Ma mie ! 

iv. 
Ay ! she hath all these charms ! And yet — and yet- 
Lost heart ! Ah ! woe is me ! 
The Arc is mist ! The Gascon wind hath met 
The sigh, and — what is left — Ma mie ? 



90 VAGARIES. 



SUA CULPA. 

SHE sighed : He would not hear her sigh ! 
Up from the sun-disk, veined with gold, 
Cloud-scymitars in blades of blood, 
Like Fates flared o'er the ebbing flood : — 
Flared out ; and all the day was told ! 

She wept : He would not hear her weep ! 

The River still ebbed toward the sea ; 
And drunk with the treacherous anodynes 
Of the odorous Summer jessamines, 

His soul still slumbered fatally. 

She prayed : He would not hear her prayer ! 

The Night-wind swept in fiery breaths 
Like fever-flushes through his sleep : 
There was no dew — though she did weep — 

Fell on his spirit — not even Death's ! 

She left him ! . . . Then, his soul awoke ! 

The storm came hurtling through the Night : 
The angry River rushed roaring back, 
Bearing strange Wrecks upon its track ; — 

Strange ? Ay ! For one . . . was swathed in white ! 



TOO LATE! 91 



TOO LATE! 

AS, through the wind-waved mist of morning, 
Down a far sweep of sylvan glade 
Come glimpses of some glistening statue, 
Perplexed with shifting sheen and shade ;— 

So, through a veil of spectral vapors, 

Now shrined in sun, now steeped in gloom, 

I see a sweet, mysterious phantom 
Of one beloved beyond the tomb. 

" To love, and then to lose, is better 
Than never to have loved ?" Ah, well ! 

But of a love by loss engendered — 
A phoenix-passion — who may tell ? 

Think that I never loved her, living ! 

Think of the awful throe of birth — 
The sudden travail of my passion — 

Begun the night she quitted earth ! 



92 VAGARIES. 

And ever since, beyond forgetting 
Of wasting care or wild caprice, 

It grows upon me in the pauses, 
And feeds upon its own increase. 

And ever, in the spectral shadows, 

Now sun-enshrined, now draped in gloom, 

I see the sad, mysterious phantom 
Of her beloved beyond the tomb ! 



CLAIRE: A SPIRIT-MEMORT. 93 



CLAIRE: 

A SPIRIT-MEMORY. 

CLAIRE was my Soul-Twin ! 
One-hearted — 
O'er her tomb we were Death-wed, 

Not parted ! 
Claire was my Soul-Twin — 
My Bride! 

The Sun-rays that nestled 

Among the gold floss 

Of her hair ; — 
The passionate Winds that wrestled 

The fragrance to share 

That distilled from her hair — 

Ay ! were wanton to share 
The incense that breathed 
From invisible censers that swayed through her hair, 
And floated and wreathed 
Round the aureous hair 



94 VAGARIES. 

Of my Sun-caressed Claire ; — 
Oh ! I envied them, cursed them ! 
With mad hand dispersed them ! 

But, ah ! vainly, 

Insanely, 
Alas ! thus I strove 
To avert Heaven's love 

From my Bride ! 
The Angels grew jealous, 
And so — it befell us, 

She died ! 

Oh ! God ! in the horror 
Of impious sorrow 
I cursed Thee, denied Thee, 
Reviled Thee, defied Thee! 

Oh ! God ! I repent me ! 

Contritely, bitterly, 
Prostrate before Thee, 

Abjectly, utterly, 
I thank Thee, adore Thee, 
For this Thou hast sent me ! 



CLAIRE: A SPIRIT-MEMORY. 95 

My Darling is dead ! 

But I hold 
One floss-curl of gold 

Of her hair, 
And the fragrance of old 

Still is shed 
To my prayer ! 
The ravishing incense still breathes through its gold, 

As of old, 
From invisible censers Thy Bounty hath fed ; 
Floating down through the air 
From the luminous zone 
Of Thy Throne- 
From the brow of Thy Claire ! 
From the radiant brow of Thy Claire, 
Shrined there ! 



96 VAGARIES. 



UMBRA: 

A HALF-SUNG SONG. 

1AM singing in the sunshine : 
You are sighing in the shade : 
Wherefore sigh when I am singing ? 
" Shadow is of sunshine made." 

Cynic ! Answer ! What are shadows, 
But the fleeting ghosts of Light ? 

Night is cradle of the Morning : 

"Rather Morn the tomb of Night.'* 

Nay, then, I will change my measure : 
Faith is night, and Hope is morn : 

Noon is Love : behold the zenith ! — 
" Child ! I was not eagle-born." 

No ! but born of woman, surely. 

What am I ? O ! look, and find, 
In my eyes, Love's noon-tide blazing !- 

"Haply! Love has long been blind." 



UMBRA. 97 



Cruel, cruel ! Say, blasphemer, 
By what altar do you pray 

That is never sun-illumined ? — 
" Peace ! By that of Yesterday !" 



98 VAGARIES. 



NEVER AGAIN. 

GIVE o'er, give o'er ! my heart is sore ! 
Its aching chords your accents strain ! 
In vain you prate of manhood's force ; 
In vain strew maxims on my course ; 
My heart is pulseless to their plea : 

They rouse no echoes in my brain : 
It seems to me — it seems to me 
That I can never smile again ! 

When passion rolls o'er human souls, 
Past woes assuage not present pain. 

What are the olden memories worth ? 

Dead ashes, on a blazing hearth ! 

The actual flame burns fierce and free ; 
Winds stir the ashen Past in vain : 

It seems to me — it seems to me 
That I can never smile again ! 

What do I care if one despair 

Hath swept, as sweeps the autumn rain, 



NEVER AGAIN. 99 

O'er some dimmed landscape of my life ? 
Still bleeds beneath the bravo's knife — 
Who stabs and stabs, with sateless glee — 

At each fresh wound a severed vein : 
It seems to me — it seems to me 

That I can never smile again ! 

Experience ? A thing of sense ! 

An unctuous barber of the brain, 
Who dresses it with studied care, 
And smooths it here, and oils it there : 
You strive, within the heart's Dead Sea, 

To sink life's bitter fruits, in vain ! 
It seems to me — it seems to me 

That I shall never smile again ! 



lOO VAGARIES. 



THE AUTUMN LEAVES. 

STILL in speclral crowds the misty clouds 
Drive past, though the moon is clear; 
Like the hurried flight of a host by night, 
O'er a wintry plain where the tents gleam white, 
And the silence strains the ear. 

Ay ! the moon is clear, and the restless stars 

Are shaking their diamond crowns : 
Yet the forests wail, and the voice of the gale 
Is sharp with the rattle of leaves, that sail, 
Like witches, over the downs. 

Skurrying over the fields they go — 

Withered, and shrunken, and wan — 
In the elfin wrack of the Night-wind's track : 
O, they are merry ! When Spring comes back, 
Look for them ! Where have they gone ? 

Where have they gone ? In the rosy morn 
Of a day not long gone by, 



THE AUTUMN LEAVES. 101 

They drank the dew of a life all new, 
And sported with every breeze that blew, 
As if Summer ne'er would die. 

Where have they gone ? Dance on, O ! leaves, 

While the Autumn wind endures ! 
Be he gentle or clown who treads you down, 
In the furrowed field or the silken town, 

Let him read his life in yours ! 



102 VAGARIES. 



GONE: 

a new-year's monody. 

I. 

AS the snow-flake on the sea ; — 
As the dew-drop on the lawn ;■ 
As the frest-rime on the tree ; — 

There, and gone ! Here, and gone ! 
So hath passed a Year to me. 

II. 

As the sunrise on the sea ; — 
As the violet on the lawn ; — 

As the spring-bud on the tree; — 
Flushed of morn ! Promise-born ! 

So is born a Year to me. 

in. 
When this vanished Year began, 
Looking seaward and to shore, 



GONE: A NEIV-T EAR'S MONODY. IO3 

Thus my pilgrim-ditty ran, 

O'er and o'er, once before, 
From Life's " Beersheba to Dan !" 

IV. 

Pilgrimage of self-deceit ! 

Angel-thwarted, Demon-ruled, 
Here I stand with weary feet ; — 

Promise-fooled, sorrow-schooled ; — 
Where the Past and Future meet ! 



Here I halt, and fling my staff 
Scornfully beside the way. 

Here I sit me down and laugh, 
As I say : " Come what may, 

Cup of care no more I quaff! 

VI. 

u Past ! I drink, in Lethean wine, 
To thy memories of pain ! 

Fond and foolish tear of mine 
Ne'er again shalt thou drain : 

I have done with thee and thine ! 



104 VAGARIES. 

VII. 

" Future ! At thy phantom-feast 
I'll no more play Barmecide ! 

Present ! Thou art mine, at least ! 
Let me ride on thy tide, 

While Life's sun still gilds the East !" 



THE END. 



